Co-Managed IT for Accounting Firms in Phoenix, Arizona
Mid-sized Phoenix CPA firms with an in-house IT person (or a designated data security coordinator who's also doing operations) usually don't need another full MSP — they need backup. After-hours and busy-season coverage, the security stack and WISP framework, project capacity, vendor escalation with CCH / UltraTax / Rightworks, and the tools they'd never get approved on their own: that's co-managed IT.
We sit alongside your in-house lead, run SOC + EDR + backup + M365 + firewall + hosted-environment integration on shared documentation, take after-hours and PTO coverage, absorb the project queue your IT person keeps deferring, and own the WISP artifact pack. The firm keeps institutional knowledge in-house; we keep the lights on and the Pub 4557 / Safeguards Rule posture defensible.
Why It Matters
Why Co-Managed IT Matters for Accounting Firms in Phoenix
Your IT person can't cover busy season alone
A Phoenix CPA firm with one in-house IT person has 40 hours of coverage and 128 hours of busy-season risk every week from January through April 15. Co-managed gives you the rest of the week and the season.
Security tooling is expensive at one-firm scale
Managed EDR, 24/7 SOC, immutable backup, SIEM, vulnerability management, security awareness, DMARC tooling — at single-firm pricing, it's six figures. We deliver it at MSP scale and the firm pays the share.
Projects stall when one person owns everything
The hosted-tax cutover, the firewall refresh, the M365 hardening, the office move — they all wait in line behind tickets and partner phone calls. Co-managed gives the firm parallel project capacity without hiring.
WISP and § 314 reporting are real work
The annual risk assessment, the qualified-individual report, the documented restore tests, the IR tabletop — these are pieces an in-house IT person frequently doesn't have time to keep current. Co-managed owns them.
What's Included
Co-Managed IT Scope for Phoenix Accounting Firms
Shared service desk
Your team handles tier 1 (and the partner relationships); we handle overflow, after-hours, and escalations. One ticketing system, shared visibility, no duplicated work.
24/7 monitoring and EDR
Managed EDR on every endpoint and server, SOC-monitored 24/7, with alerts routed to both your team and ours. Your IT person isn't paged at 2 a.m. for things our SOC can handle.
Backup and DR operations
Immutable backup platform, documented quarterly restore tests, and DR runbook ownership — your team validates, we operate.
Microsoft 365 and identity
Tenant administration, conditional access, DLP with tax-data classifiers, sensitivity labels, retention, eDiscovery — managed jointly. Your team sets policy with the partners; we run the controls.
Hosted-tax-env vendor management
We carry the Rightworks / Cetrom / Swizznet relationship for case escalation, change windows, and incident coordination — your IT person doesn't lose two hours opening the right ticket on a March Saturday.
Project capacity on demand
Hosted-tax cutovers, server retirements, M365 hardening, office moves, firewall refreshes — your IT person chooses what to keep and what to hand off, project by project.
WISP + § 314 program management
Quarterly security review, policy maintenance, qualified-individual artifacts, annual risk assessment, cyber-insurance attestation pack, tabletop exercises. The data security coordinator gets a real bench.
Documentation discipline
Shared documentation in your platform of choice — IT Glue, Hudu, SharePoint — kept current with every change. The firm owns it; we keep it accurate.
Local Proof
Built for the Phoenix Accounting Firms Reality
We work for your IT person, not over them
The relationship is built so your in-house lead stays the firm's IT voice with the managing partner and the data security coordinator role stays defensible.
Pre-built CPA-firm runbooks
Onboarding, offboarding, busy-season change freeze, hosted-env case escalation — we bring the templates; your team adapts them.
WISP and insurer attestation pack
We produce the artifact file every renewal so your IT person isn't writing it from scratch each year.
Related Pages
Explore the Phoenix Accounting Firms stack
FAQs
Co-Managed IT questions Phoenix accounting firms ask
Got an in-house IT person drowning in busy season at your Phoenix CPA firm? Let's talk for 15 minutes about a co-managed model that gives them the bench they need.
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